Suit alleges state failed to protect child from convicted molester

EVERETT — The state Department of Corrections is being sued for allegedly ignoring court orders that in the early 1990s should have kept a convicted child molester away from a young girl he abused for years in Snohomish County.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday on behalf of a Florida woman, now 26. It names as defendants the state corrections department and the former wife of Claude Baker.

Baker was convicted in 1990 of molesting young girls in Chelan County. He died in 2011 at 62.

The Florida woman was adopted by Baker and his wife in 1988, when she was a toddler, according to documents filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.

After his conviction, he was ordered to have no contact with children, and placed under community supervision by the state.

Despite the court order that he stay away from children, state officials allowed Claude Baker in October 1992 to return to live with his family in Snohomish County, according to attorneys with the Seattle-based Kosnoff Fasy law firm.

The girl was then 6. Baker repeatedly sexually abused her until July 1995, the lawsuit says.

Baker’s then-wife “knew or should have known that Claude was sexually abusing their daughter, but she took no steps to stop or report the abuse,” the attorneys alleged.

Meanwhile, the state ignored the court orders and its own information about Claude Baker’s sexual attraction to young girls, the lawyers said.

The lawsuit seeks the Florida woman’s attorneys fees and unspecified damages to be proven at trial.